For the Dreamers
by vinewood
Summary: While Ariadne attempts a return to school and a normal life, trying to ignore her past is proving more difficult than she expected. But when Arthur returns unexpectedly, Ariadne may realize there are some things you just can't have, even in dreams.
1. Chapter 1

Customs. Arthur _hated_ customs. It was stupid, it was ridiculous. There was always only one solitary guy working the stupid line - which seemed to go on for miles anyway - and it seemed that every person that went up to simply get _one_ fucking stamp had their own individual question they wanted answered. Trying to listen, he heard the woman at a the front ask the officer where she was supposed to go next. Arthur swore under his breath, and tried to stifle his desire to throw something out the window. He opted instead to straighten his tie for the ninth time in the last four minutes, simply to give his hands something to do.

"A little fidgety, are we?"

The cool voice that spoke next to him was calm and amused, and the ease with which the words came would have soothed Arthur's irritable mood even if he _hadn't_ known the girl speaking them. But as it was, he did. Turning to Ariadne with one cocked eyebrow, he bent a bit closer and kept his voice down for modesty's sake.

"I just don't understand it," he said, poorly disguising his frustration. "Person walks up to the guy, guy stamps the book, person walks away. You wouldn't have thought it'd be that difficult."

"I'd have thought after a ten-hour flight fast asleep, you wouldn't be the cliche of a typical irritable plane passenger."

Arthur smirked. "It wasn't exactly the most pleasant of sleeps."

Ariadne managed to restrain her laughter-filled grin into a smile with lips barely held together. It wasn't just that the usually zen Arthur was so grouchy at the moment, though that was a funny enough parody in and of itself. Mostly it was just the little twinge of satisfaction she gleaned from having a bit of information that no one else did. To anyone in the queue who would have happened to listen, Ariadne would only appear to be speaking with a friend about a rather long plane ride; they would never and probably could never really know what had happened to her. It was only an elite group of people that ever got to experience dreams like that, and an even smaller band knew what Ariadne herself had been through. Hell, Cobb was the only one who had any idea of what Ariadne had seen down in Limbo. Speaking of Cobb…

"So, I assume Cobb is on his way home now?" she asked, looking over her shoulder curiously to see if she could spot the blonde-haired man towering above some of the other heads. The group had split up after disembarking the plane to remain inconspicuous, so Ariadne was having some trouble spotting him. It was only she and Arthur who had decided to stick together, just for creature comfort's sake.

"Allegedly," shrugged Arthur. "Assuming Saito keeps his word."

"I think he will," said Ariadne, giving a little nod of affirmation, mostly to convince herself more than anybody else. "He seemed like a good guy."

"Well, it was never really a question of _would _he," pointed out Arthur, his voice now dipping significantly in volume as their conversation got more conspicuous. "Though a broken promise certainly was not a long shot in these types of scenarios. Mostly Cobb was worried about whether or not he _could_."

"What do you mean?" asked Ariadne, keeping her eyes on the customs officer at the front of the line.

"Come on, all of Cobb's charges fixed with one phone call? What kind of man has that much power? And who's to say that Saito is one of those men?"

"He had access to us," she pointed out. "Someone had to inform him about what we could do. And I haven't been in the business that long, but something tells me that our particular skills aren't the types that they advertise next to the iguana adoptions."

Arthur gave a little exhale of a chuckle out his nose. "Well, that was the logic Cobb kept in his mind. And I think Saito _will_ keep his promise. There'd be no reason not to at this point…he promised to do it after a successful inception, and I thought we did very well."

"Yeah," said Ariadne quietly. "Yeah, definitely."

Their conversation had seemed to reach a natural end, and so Ariadne and Arthur were left in silence. But that was one of the many things that Ariadne liked about Arthur. It didn't matter where they were; in a room, in a car, in line at customs, it couldn't have been anywhere. But there was never really a pressure to talk with Arthur; a pressure to fill the silence with meaningless dribble just to prove that they could. Ariadne very much disliked people who gave off that vibe; that constant need to be without periods of silence. Arthur was easy to talk to when the opportunity arose, but when it didn't, sitting there together wasn't much of a horrendous thing.

Meanwhile, the queue was getting shorter and shorter as they approached the stamping. People filed through, one after the other, and through the windows spread out on the wide wall next to them, Ariadne could see that rain was beginning to fall from the blanket of gray clouds hanging over Los Angeles. Maybe the rain would at least wash away some of the smog, which filled in the cracks of L.A. like the yellow of rotting teeth.

Ariadne was pleased when they finally made it to the front of the line - Arthur's rebooted frustration was almost palpable. Creasing open her passport, she handed it to the officer first. Giving her an appraising look, but a generally friendly one, the officer stamped her passport and said, "How was your trip, miss?" Ariadne smiled at him._ Almost got stuck in dream limbo for all eternity. But that was a low-point._ "It was lovely, thank you," she replied, taking back her passport. She stepped away from the line and walked slowly, ambling along to wait for Arthur.

"So, where are you off to, next?" asked Ariadne, stepping off onto the escalator with Arthur close in tow.

"Home," Arthur supplied simply. "Gotta stop off there first. Then maybe do a bit of traveling, I'm not sure, yet, really." Turning to her with the smallest trace of a smile, he said, "What about you?"

Ariadne gave a little chuckle as she realized what she'd have to answer. "Back to Marne-la-Vallée, I guess," she said, shrugging. "I told them I was off on absence for a work-placement opportunity. Professor Miles has been covering up for me a bit, but I can only catch up on so much coursework, you know?" Smiling distantly and gazing off at the intricate ceiling of LAX, she couldn't help but give another laugh. "Considering what we've just been doing, our future lives sound a bit…dull, don't they?" she asked, still smiling despite her confused frown.

"Quite," agreed Arthur. "But…that's the curse of an architect. _Our _kind of architect," he added. "After such unbridled creative freedom…it ensnares you. And no amount of prestigious French universities can satiate those desires." He stared at her pointedly and the smile slowly slipped off of Ariadne's face. What did he mean? Would she even be able to return to school now? But she wasn't uncontrollable - she could go back to _normal _architecture. Besides…normal architecture didn't typically have trains crashing through city streets without notice. Right?

She didn't have a chance to ask about Arthur's cryptic words, however, because they were at baggage claim now, and they'd finally caught up with Eames. He'd already gotten his bag and now was staring at them with both hands stuffed in his pockets and a serene expression on his face.

"Hello, chums," he said complacently. After exchanging rather meaningless greetings, the three of them stood there for a few moments with nothing to really say to each other. Now Eames - with him it was a different story. He wasn't one of the ones who needed silence filled. He was one of the people who made_ you_ into one of the people who wanted silence filled.

"So…" began Ariadne, not attempting to hide the obvious awkwardness of the situation. "Now what?"

Arthur exchange an expectant look with Eames. "Well," Eames began, exhaling sharply. "I don't know where you and Imagination are headed off to, but I ought to be getting back."

"Getting back where?" Ariadne asked, genuinely interested. She'd never really know what Eames had done for a living.

"Yeah, Eames," said Arthur, chuckling deeply, a childishly gleeful smile on his face. "Getting back where?"

"Piss off," growled Eames, turning to grab the handle of his bag - which was quite obviously not filled with anything by the way he swung it about with ease. Ariadne was pleased to see the two of them getting along so well, especially now that they were in public, and not even under Cobb's scrutinizing eye. And yes, this was almost considered tea-party manners, considering it _was_ Arthur and Eames. Truthfully, there was very little else the three of them could say to each other. And even though their time together was at an end, Ariadne was almost sad to see them all have to leave.

"It's been fun," she said, chuckling at how cheesy, and yet strangely applicable the words were.

"Darling, you clearly do not get out much," said Eames, rolling his eyes, "if doing odd jobs for Japanese corporations is a fun thing for you."

Ariadne grinned and combed a lock of hair behind her ear. "Nah, I mean it," she admitted, shrugging nonchalantly. It was surprisingly easy to be nonchalant with these guys, especially now that they weren't planning their big scheme of how to break into Fischer's mind. "It has been…a bit…epic." Ariadne hated to use such an overly-used word, but there as no other description she could use.

"Epic. Lovely. Hear that, Imagination?" said Eames, turning to Arthur with a dead-pan face. "We're _epic_. The children like us."

"The 'children?' Like 'us?'" scoffed Arthur, rolling his eyes. "I'm not even thirty yet."

"See? I told you there was a reason we call him Imagination," Eames said, grinning from ear to ear towards Ariadne while pointing his finger at Arthur. A few moment of amused silence passed before Eames decided to take the bull by the horns. He held out one large hand for Ariadne to grasp, and shook it firmly. "It_ has_ been a pleasure, Ariadne," he said, and he didn't look displeased. "And as always, if you need me, I'm always a phone call away." Digging into his pocket, he pulled out a very official looking card embossed with his name and phone number in sleek gold foil lettering. Ariadne frowned at the number.

"This is a '555' number," she pointed out, looking up at him confused. "Everyone knows that '555' numbers don't - " But she trailed off at the "I-told-you-so" look on Arthur's face and the fact that Eames was already grudgingly shaking Arthur's hand and beginning to make his exit out of the terminal. Giving the departing Eames a small wave, Ariadne turned back to Arthur and sighed. "He's a real charmer."

They were finally outside in the raining city, and taxis were everywhere. But as it _was_ L.A., there was practically not a single one in sight. It was all either privately ordered taxis, or hotel shuttles, which Ariadne figured she might have to eventually use anyway. She turned to watch Arthur, who was already on his phone, arranging his hotel rooms, and trying to wave down a taxi simultaneously. She envied him; he was so at home here in the States. She wondered if he had ever really wanted to keep doing these dream things. He always seemed to be just a touch miserable whenever they were doing something like that. He seemed much more comfortable on his own two feet - his own _real_ feet, not his dream feet.

As if on cue, a taxi pulled up for Arthur and came to a stop in front of them. "Hey, this is me," he said, giving her a grin. "I'm heading out pretty far, so I ordered you your own cab. It should be here any minute." Ariadne's eyebrows raised in surprise at this kind gesture while she watched him pull out a scrap of paper and write something down on it. "This," he said, clicking the pen closed and handing her the number. "is _not_ a '555' number." He smiled at her. "I gotta run, but…call me, yeah?"

Ariadne nodded with a small but genuine smile as Arthur grasped the handle of his suitcase and began to walk out of the terminal. Turning around so that he was walking backwards, he added, "And not as in…you know…'Los Angeles' call me. I mean, really. Call me."

"I will."

As Arthur climbed into the backseat of the cab, Ariadne looked down at the number in her hand. It was a genuine number. As she looked back up at Arthur, who had started to pull away, she figured that she _would_ call him. Out of all the members of the team, Arthur was the most pleasant, and the easiest to talk to. Maybe it would be worth a call or two. It wasn't until Arthur was already driving away that she remembered the burning question she'd been meaning to ask him.

"Hey, _Arthur_" she shouted, jogging a few steps further down the concrete path.

Amazingly, he heard her, and stuck his head out of the open cab window. "Yeah?" he called.

She considered it for a moment, before realizing the question was too complicated to ask out of a cab window. "Nothing," she called back, and then mouthed "I'll call you" as he drove away. He gave her a little wave of comprehension, before disappearing behind the bend. Sighing deeply, Ariadne realized that the yellow cab - which had been sitting in front of her for a while - was hers. Giving a last wistful glance at the bend behind which Arthur had disappeared, Ariadne climbed into the cab and headed out towards her hotel.

She'd have to hold him to that phone call sometime, right?


	2. Chapter 2

_Tap. T-tap, tap. Tap-tap-tap._

Ariadne was going to go insane. How much longer could this class possiblytake? It had to have been hours, days, _weeks_ since she'd turned in her test (one of the first, as always) and the remaining time left to her in class seemed to be eating her alive. When Ariadne hadn't realized about her forgotten reading book back in her dorm until she was nearly all the way to the bus stop, she had rolled her eyes and assumed that she would have to make do without it. Unfortunately, she was wrong. She should have known herself - Ariadne was not one of those students that could occupy themselves with nothing.

Seven minutes left. How could she possiblylast these last seven minutes? And of course, there was always that _one _kid that refused to turn in his test a moment earlier than they had to; going back and looking over answers, erasing some in a paranoid frenzy only to re-bubble them back in once again. Which was dandy for them, but a real pain in the ass for the rest of the students, who had been promised a free rest of the period once "all tests were turned in."

Unable to stand it any longer, Ariadne had to do _something_, she just had to. Reaching down into her bag, she pulled out her notebook and flipped it open to the first blank page she could find, skipping over the physics notes and the other doodles she'd made to herself in bored stupors shared in other classes. Clicking the pen she was holding, the protruding tip now quivered expectantly over the blank page; poised for importance but really having nothing to do. _Come on, Ariadne_, she thought to herself belligerently. _You're the goddamn architect. Design something_.

But all she could pull out of herself was a bunch of half-imagined rectangles nestled in sprigs of grass with squares for windows. Honestly, it looked like a child's doodle. Her professors would be ashamed. Giving a barely inaudible sigh and sitting back in her seat, Ariadne assessed her work with a few sleepy blinks, wishing she'd at least brought her thermos of coffee she'd made that morning, now probably ice-cold at home in her coffee pot. Is this really all she was going to be worth today? If so, she would have been better off staying at home in her bed.

It took her a few more seconds to realize what she _had _drawn - or, rather, that she'd drawn anything of any significance at all. Blinking in surprise, Ariadne found herself leaning forward to examine the drawing closer. It was strangely uncomfortable, as if coming from a long-remembered dream. And in reality, it had - unless that notion itself was a paradox. To anyone else it would seem like the mindless doodle of a bored student, but to Ariadne it actually looked like _something_. And not just something; some _place_. Some place which, for Ariadne and the rest of the poor souls who had been down there, was some place very real. This was the Limbo state.

"_You never remember the beginning of your dreams, do you? You always seem to wind up somewhere in the middle of what's going on_."

A delicate shiver passed down Ariadne's spine, and the world around her tiny little drawing seemed to swell and pitch around her. She traced the indents of the pen lines with her index finger. Maybe if she pressed into them hard enough, she could return. Return to her dreams… Suddenly feeling anxious, an oddly timed wave of panic swept over Ariadne, a sense of stifling claustrophobia. Quickly, she reached into her pocket, searching around desperately for what she sought. And then, she found it; she grasped the tiny pawn that sat nestled there, tightly pinned between the layers of fabric. Taking it out and placing it on the table, she saw her fingers shaking and trembling pathetically. _Get a grip on yourself, Ari_. The tip of one finger rested softly on the top of the piece, lifting it up off one edge, and then the other, back and forth, back and forth. Pulling back her fingers, she prepared to give the pawn the necessary nudge with her finger.

BRRRRRRRRRING.

Startled by the ring of the bell, Ariadne's finger nudged the pawn over more because of being startled than by proactively hitting it. But the small _clack _of the weight of the piece tipping was enough for the girl. Ariadne breathed a small sigh as the pawn tipped over just as it should have, with the perfect balance of weight. Blinking rapidly, she finally responded to the sound of the ringing school bell, and looked up to see her Professor standing up and stacking a pile of papers into a neat pile, while the rustle of students packing up and heading out to lunch brought a deafening din to the room that was somehow comforting. Ariadne didn't like the unnerving silence.

"Study guides for final exams will be handed out next week," called Professor Miles loudly, trying to be heard over the bustle. "I hope all of you have been keeping up to date on the comprehensive study."

Swallowing the dry, stinging sensation in her throat, Ariadne took her totem in one hand and stuffed it deep in her pocket, hiding it easily from her Professor, whom she assumed would think she was only tucking away her phone, or an iPod. "S-see you-," she began awkwardly, but her voice cracked so awfully that she cleared her throat to start again. "See you later, Professor Miles," she said with a small wave, giving him her farewell with a small smile. Miles looked up and returned her wave with ease, but the look on his face was disconcerting to Ariadne. Almost as if he sensed her unease.

"Anything the matter?" he asked, raising his eyebrows.

For a split second - one, infinitesimal second - Ariadne had the strangest sensation that Professor Miles knew what her problem was, what she had just been drawing. Almost that she could confide in him. Nervously clutching her notebook, now tucked into her bag, closer to her side, she pressed her lips together innocently and shook her head. "Nope," she replied easily. "Long period, I guess. Pretty tired."

"Well, get some rest," said Miles good-naturedly. "Wouldn't want one of my brightest knackered on her last weekend before final exams."

"No, sir," agreed Ariadne, chuckling. "I'll be sure to do that."

Stepping out of the classroom and into the hall, Ariadne shivered. She didn't like Professor Miles looking at her like that, looking at her with that sense of …what was the word? Understanding? Comprehension? Because that was impossible. Professor Miles couldn't know. Probably wouldn't ever know. But most of all, she didn't like the fact that she had nearly subconsciously drawn the Limbo state on her paper. Not just because Limbo was creepy enough in and of itself, but because it proved that her subconscious mind was still stuck in her dreams. Those _particular _dreams. And if she was stuck there in the subconscious, she'd have to be extra careful. Ariadne wasn't about to exchange awareness for paranoia, and you could never be more careful, especially now with her newfound talents. She fingered her totem in her pocket as she continued to walk, chewing the side of her lip.

She _had _to get out more.

* * *

**A/N: **Normally, I don't like riddling stories with Author's Notes, but I just wanted to apologize for this chapter being so short. I'm going to try and make this a "long-chapter" story; I just felt that this "chapter" had reached a natural end, but the next chapter will pick up nearly right where this one left off. And besides...this is just a website, so chapters can be as sodding long as I feel like they can :P


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